So firmly established were Margaret Deland's achievements in the minds of her generation that in 1936 Encyclopedia of American Biography could correctly cite her "international reputation" as precluding any need for extensive introduction. Extolled as a writer who could make her considerable audience not only read but think, she was among the first women elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1926), and she was awarded honorary degrees by Rutgers University (1917), Tufts University (1920), Bates College (1920), and Bowdoin College (1921). Margaretta Wade Campbell Deland now needs not only introduction but reconsideration, for historical and artistic reasons.

Her life covered years of monumental change in American society and was filled with honors and opportunities, despite its difficult beginnings. Born near Allegheny, Pennsylvania, she was named Margaretta Wade Campbell after her mother, who had died in giving birth to her. Her father, Sample Campbell, died when she was about four, and Margaretta...